Painting Ork Skin
In this tutorial i would like to show you my way of painting the ork skin. Its goal is to get those massive mobs of boyz painted as fast as possible, but also to make them look good on the table.
I use paints from many different ranges but i will try to give alternative names of paints from the new GW range. Keep in mind however that i didnt try most of those alternative paints, so i cant guarantee the results. Im also open for suggestions on using different sets of paints if you will find some interesting mixes.
Below i will describe in steps the whole process. Remember that they are mostly guidlines so you can adjust them to your needs whenever you want it.
White undercoat. This is important, as its a cruicial step as the entire method is based on using white color instead of black. Im not sure how well will it work with grey undercoats as i havent tried it, probably much better than with black anyway.
Base color – Dark Angels Green (Caliban Green). This is probably the most tricky part. Idea is to use DA Green paint as a wash, so it will cover all the areas and get into all crevaces. In the end all parts surrounding the muscles, insides of joints etc. should be dark, while all other areas, especially top parts of the muscles should be light green. As i said this part might be tricky as it requires right proportion of paint and water. If you will add not enough water then the model will end up too dark, while adding too much will make the paint flow down, leaving too much of the white areas out.
Highlighting – Perhaps higlightning is not the perfect name for it as sometimes we will be actually making some parts of the models darker. Idea is to add some other shade of light green to the model, fixing the areas where paint looks uneven and to add more coherent look. Which paint you will use here is up to you. Previously ive used mix of Dark Angles Green and Dwarf Flesh (or other flesh colors) adding more and more flesh with each layer in more complex models. Right now im using ’Wurm Green’ from P3 range (Moot Green would be a good equivalent from GW i think). I usually apply it in 1-3 layers depending how much effort i want to put into the model. First layer is usually a bit thinned down with water, but not much so it wont flow down into cravaces. Second layer is only put into places where i want the final color to look more intensive like rounded parts of muscles, bottom parts of upper lips, jaw, ears etc. Final layer is also added to those parts, more towards the edges and usually contains some mix of flesh paint. This final layer should best be added to only most exposed areas, preferably on face, knuckles etc. This stage can be easilly modified to increase quality of the painting by adding more layers and experimenting with the mix.
Edges – I think this part is often neglected by lot of people. It requieres a bit of skill and practice but can really do wonders for your models. It will flesh out the features and make every paintjob look sharper, even from the table top distance. You dont have to paint the edges around all the features, you just need to choose the most visible ones like head, face, larger muscles etc. You should also choose those parts that are most exposed to the source of light, so usually it means upper parts.
For the color i usually use the mix of last highlight with white. Proportions depends on how thin will the final line be. Thiner the line, more white you should add to the mix.
Finishing touches – Now we can take care of other elements like teeth, eyes and lower lips. For eyes i use red color with orange dot painted in the middle. Teeth are brown with bleached bone painted over them. Lips are dark cherry color highlighted with strips of same color mixed with white. Nothing fancy, just quick and easy. Contrast is more important here, especially for quick painting.
Thats it. Finished ork skin. You can get really fast with this technique. Above ork took me only few minutes. Edges take the most time and practice, but after a while they will hopefully become less time-consuming.
Other examples:
Here are some other examples, some using diffrent, darker or lighter mix and some are painted using more layers during the 3 step.